I meant to say 15-25 years old in the video!

Like I also said in the video, I am LOOKING FORWARD to the showers. There are no showers in the homestay because this is their way of saving water. They are very conscious about their water and electricity here. so bathing is not the most refreshing or quickest way of cleansing oneself but its ok. its part of the experience.

Another interesting thing about SA is that their Bill of Rights provides a Right to Housing to all South Africans. SA is one of two, if I am not mistaken, countries that provides this right to its people. so it is another big issue here in the country. Yesterday we drove around and visited a couple of places to see different types of housing. There are shacks-style house that really are just slums, there are tin-town where people live in "tin cans" (pics up on facebook soon), there are Reconstruction and Development Program houses by the government, flats leased by the government and privately owned houses. being the most unequal nation in the world, crossing the road from government provided housing brings you to a nice privately-owned community.

majority of people that live in shacks or tin-towns are those waiting for their own homes. they get a document from the government saying that they have the house and wait for the house to be built. there are many corruption issues that surrounds the system because people with connections/who bribe the authorities are made beneficiaries sooner, taking the place of those that were promised. the gov't places people in the slums and tin-towns, supposedly for 6 months, while the gov't builds the houses. however, there are many people that stay in the same shacks and tin-towns for 2,6, 10 and even 20 years. we also met with a shack dwellers movement that aims to protect and uphold the rights and seek justice for those unfairly treated.

the provision of housing creates an interesting dynamic to the city of Durban. the city center is surrounded by hills and all around the city all over the hills are homes and developments. the city isn't really populated past working hours. the apartheid regime also had a part to play in this because they forced non-whites to resettle away from the whites, driving them out of the city. and so the city center is just surrounded by houses. this then poses a transportation issue, employment-outside the city, and the proximity of lower class housing to developed areas creates more crime. no wonder some houses here look like prison with fences and barbed wire surrounding their property. many houses also have armed response security in case the house is broken into or something to that effect.

I found this interesting.